


Ghost Age

by MiaCousland



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Ghostbusters (Movies 1984-1989), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover, Mash-up, Other, Will it work? Who knows., musings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-13 01:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7957033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCousland/pseuds/MiaCousland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Character<br/>========</p>
<p>The city of Denerim is being overrun by monsters, ghouls, and deadly darkspawn.  This hitherto unknown enemy has only one thing stopping it: a team of scientists without a name, without resources, and without hope!  Will they survive?  Because every reading points to something big on the horizon ...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Out of Character<br/>==========</p>
<p>Favourite game world = Dragon Age.<br/>Favourite movie = Ghostbusters.</p>
<p>Let's do a mash-up!!  I have no idea if it will work but I'm going to have a go!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"There's only seventy-five more to go, okay?"

The bolt from the crossbow sailed through the air and hit the wrong target, again.  With a sigh and a wry smile, Varric Tethras shook his head slowly and marked a cross on the clipboard.  A nod to his partner, Solas, caused the mage to send a small flick of electrical charge to the torso of the poor boy.  He jerked slightly and for a moment, his face wrinkled with the pain.  Somewhere in Varric's chest beat a heart, but it didn't care today.  The long slog of research.   _Sigh_.  Two ranges, two people.  One a small, wiry, Darktown lad with a shock of black hair, the other a glamourous, blonde girl.  Just Varric's type.  That made it a little better.

"I'm getting a little tired of this!" the scamp complained as he tried desperately to sound tough but keeping a wary eye on the bald mage.  
"You volunteered, didn't you?  We're paying you, aren't we?" Varric asked, his irritation peaking at being stuck in the damp room for what already seemed like hours.  

He could just feel the dark smiles of the mage behind him leering out of the shadows.  He almost felt sorry for the subject.

"But I didn't know you were going to be giving me electric shocks!  What are you trying to prove here, anyway!?"  
"We're studying the effects of negative reinforcement on ESP abilities." Solas said gently.  
"The effect?  I'll tell you what the effect is!  It's pissing me off!"

He moved sharply to the door, skirting as far away from Solas as he could manage, and left quickly.  Varric turned to the girl, who laid the crossbow she had been using on the counter.  With a cute grin, she glanced over to Varric.  

"So, shall we stop here?" she asked.  
"No, we're right in the middle of something.  I need to carry on the research!" Varric grinned.  
"Do you think I have something, Doctor Tethras?"  
"You're no fluke."

Another shy smile.  Varric was convinced he was onto something.  Charging his innate charm, he looked over to Solas with a wink.  The bald elf simply rolled his eyes and left the room, muttering something as he went.  Varric swaggered over and stood next to the vision of loveliness.

"So does the crossbow have a name?" she asked coyly after a few moments of awkward silence.  
"What's yours, Smiles?"  
"Bianca."  
"Well, what do you know ... " came the low drawl and the knowing grin.

 _Time to make a move_ , he thought.   _She's blushing.  Always a good sign.  Moving in for a kiss ..._

BANG!

The door had almost rocketed shut again, such was the force with which someone had burst into the room.  The unknown invader was halfway across the simple shooting range towards the store-cupboard before Varric had turned to look at them.

"This is it, Varric!  This is definitely it!" gushed Alistair as he pulled out the mediocre weapons and equipment they had.  "Camera, check.  UV filter?  Hmmm, where is it?" he muttered excitedly to himself.

The dwarf's eyes slowly shut with embarrassment and annoyance.  Holding Bianca's eye, he apologised silently before drawing back and walking over to where Alistair stood rooting through their meagre stock, picking up the clipboard as he went.  With a slap to the thigh with the board, Alistair yelped and turned to him, his bottom lip out and looking genuinely hurt.

"Theirin, I'm right in the middle of something here.  Could you come back in say an hour, hour and a half?"  He threw a sideways glance at Bianca who was looking around the room a little vacantly.  Something inside pierced Varric but with a snort, he pushed it down deep inside him.  He needed a throwaway night of fun.  
"No, no, no!  Darkspawn have been sighted at the Denerim Public Library.  We have to go down.  We're close on this one, I can feel it."  There was an impish excitement coming through every smile that the tall man gave.  Varric couldn't help but feed off it, but he'd never let Alistair know.  That would mean that he had won.  
"I'm very excited for you, Alistair.  I want you to get down there right away."  
"No, you're coming with us on this one, Varric.  We need you.  Solas is fetching the rest of the kit.  Strap up, it'll be like the old times!"

 

* * *

  

The sound of the footsteps fell away from them as they trod down the stairs.  First Alistair with a battered sword in one hand, and in the other a sensor that, to Varric, seemed little more than a box with a rune in it.  Maybe it was, he didn't know, and Alistair hadn't told him how he had made it.  There had been a delivery from Feddic and Co, but Varric had signed without really reading the delivery note.  Just thrown it at the young lad who had squealed with delight.  Next down the stairs came Varric himself, Bianca resting comfortably in his hands.  It had been a while since he had wielded the weapon in anger and truth be told, his hands just felt  _right_ when his fingers wrapped around the oiled stock and the cold metal of the trigger.  It almost sang in his hands.  But hey, he had his reputation to hold onto.  He couldn't be seen to be getting emotional over an inanimate object so he tipped his chin up and strode down the stairs.  Somewhere behind him, clinging to the shadows, Solas walked.  The only signal Varric could hear was the soft tapping of the end of his staff hitting the steps.  He just took it as read that the mage was close by.

There was a foul stench in the air.  From what they had seen and experienced before, this was definitely a good lead.  The three of them had spent the last few months quietly researching a surge in signs and rumours of beasts stalking the streets, wantonly killing before disappearing.  The rate at which they were happening was increasing and with the city police stretched thin as it was, Alistair had convinced both he and Solas to look into it.  Ostensibly, they were tenured at the University.  As long as they kept pushing out the research into what they loosely refered to as 'evil phenomena', then Varric could be content with his sweet station in life.  It was the kid that kept dragging them off to new and gory sites, convinced that they could help.  Solas wanted to as well, though Varric could never quite work out the reasoning behind his involvement.  Apparently, it was all fascinating to him.

At the bottom of the stairs, rows and rows of bookshelves stretched away from them.  The crouch Alistair had adopted was comical and Varric snorted to see the kid swing the sensor contraption around.

"This way." he hissed with an excited smile.  They carried on for ten seconds at most before Alistair's hand shot out to stop them passing.  "Listen ..." he squeaked.  "Do you smell something?"

Varric stared hard into the darkness.  What was that!? Had something moved? Maybe it was his imagination but he was convinced ... _no, surely not_ ...  It couldn't be this time.  Could it?  When Alistair was satisfied that there was no noise, they moved off once again.  Stealthily the three crept along.  Varric's grip tightened on the crossbow and he almost loosed when the lights flickered on.

"Solas?  Was that you?" Alistair asked as he tried to rein in the alarm in his voice.  
"I do not wish to traipse around in the dark and be surprised by darkspawn.  Of course it was me."  
"Well, thank you.  That was most ... sensible."

On they plunged among the flickering light of the library basement.  Alistair walked in front, using his sensor to guide the way.  Varric wasn't convinced that it was working but walking around one corner made him stop and instantly reconsider.  All three were rendered immobile at what lay before them.  The lost body of the librarian, whom they had been called in to find, was being devoured by not one but two genlocks.  Varric's face froze and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he was scared.  But his sense of self-preservation was legendary.

"Gouda?  Chuckles?  Can you come here, please?" he called softly as he backed around the corner.  His palms were sweating slightly as he slapped Alistair around the head.  "Okay, so what do we do now?"

Alistair glanced down at the box in his hand and opened his mouth, only for nothing to come out.  Varric shook his head in disgust as he looked to Solas.  There was a dark gleam in the eyes of the elf which only chilled Varric's spine.

"You two!  Do you actually have a plan?"

Alistair looked at Solas with an uneasy grin, which was returned with a fervency that made Varric queasy.  It was clear that nothing had been prepped for actually needing to  _fight_ the things.  Gripping Bianca a little tighter, he whispered a fierce "follow me" before checking to see if the beasts were still occupied.  It was at this moment of pausing to gather his thoughts, Alistair brightened and turned to the group with a twinkle that made Varric inwardly groan.  This would be painful.  
  
"Okay, I have a plan.  Stay close."

With only those instructions, Alistair crept around the corner towards what would be certain doom.  Formed of an old habit, Varric's thumb flicked over the latch and made sure Bianca was ready.  What was he thinking?  This was an _insane_ plan.  Varric couldn't vouch for Solas but he was sure-as-shit nervous to all hell.  They were creeping to jump out on killers.  Hadn't they just seen the things ripping at the corpse of a dead librarian?  This could only end badly.  Varric's heartrate soared as he put one silent foot in front of the other, pausing only to lift the sight of the crossbow to his eyes.

It was at this moment the genlocks stopped and saw them.  One evil, dripping maw slathered as it paused in it's chewing of viscera.  It seemed almost ... confused. But with an unholy roar, one of them stood and screamed at the group of three.  Varric only realised he was running away when he breached the top of the stairs.  He didn't even stop to see if Alistair or Solas was with him.  Screeching across the library's main room towards the exit, he burst through the door into the cold light of day.  He didn't care that the problem was still down there.  It could feast until the cows came home but he was out of there now, and that's what mattered.  Somewhere behind him, someone cried "Did you see it?  What was it?" but it was almost as if a ghost had shouted it.  Only when he was several blocks away, did his lungs tell him to stop or they would burst.  Leaning against a stone wall, he heaved in air.  Two things he couldn't deny now.  One, he was as unfit as everyone said he was.  He was not built to run.  And two?

Darkspawn were most definitely here.


	2. Chapter 2

Alistair was a hyper little asshole all the way back to the university.  He was bouncing off the walls like some kind of sugared-up puppy.  I liked the guy but dammit, he needed to calm the hell down.  We walked along Fifth and East, towards Uptown where the welcoming walls of academia would keep me safe.  Surely those monsters wouldn't dare invade such a hallowed piece of land.  I shook my head as I realised I was giggling inside.  Did I just call this piece-of-shit establishment as 'hallowed'?  The walls of our facility were mouldy and peeling.  The range we had used yesterday was from an old war bunker that was so far underground, I was sure the darkspawn would burrow through eventually.  We'd turn round one day and come smack up against the bastards.

"I can't believe it.  We actually touched the etheric plain!" Alistair crowed with a smile so wide I could practically see his back teeth.  
"So, what in Thedas are we going to do next?  We've seen them.  So what?"  
"Tell the city guards, obviously." Alistair replied innocently, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.  
"And what are they going to be able to do?  These things are beyond any rowdy Orlesians that might show up, or the occasional wild bear that would wander into town." Solas said, surprisingly backing me up for once.  
"We did pretty well today.  I think we can take them properly.  If we trained for it, I mean." came the hopeful shrug.  
"With what, Gouda?  We have my crossbow, a rusty sword, and a staff.  That's it."  
"Hmmm ..."

Instead of being upset by my apathy - and I had tried hard to put all my disdain into that one sentence - Alistair pursed his lips and went silent for a while.  What was this fresh hell?  Was he actually thinking here?  He carried on thinking hard as we crossed a couple of backstreets and emerged into a town square lined with trees and flowers.  The smell from an achingly-hip coffee shop almost tempted me in but no, we had to get back.  

"Well, we do have our back-up plan." he finally touted.  
"Not this old chestnut!" I snorted.  "Look, Cheddar, this won't work."  
"Varric, it could." Solas proposed.  I almost tripped over.  "We _can_ fight these things.  We understand them.  I've spent time studying them.  A lot of time."  
"No doubt, Chuckles.  You get their deep, mysterious ways.  It calls to you.  I understand.  But fighting them?  Destroying them properly?"  
"I have been researching an alchemical potion that will help us."  
"Help us how?"  
"By letting us hear their thoughts?"

A laugh escaped my lips without me thinking.  I let it free and it developed into a full-blown guffaw.  I hung on to the rail of the steps we climbed.

"Oh, Solas, you do make me laugh.  'Oh, I'd love to find me some brains to eat'.  Yes, I want to hear darkspawn dinner plans."  
"Varric, it will work.  My work has been impeccable so far."  
"We can also fashion better weapons as well." Alistair piped up with.  The excitement of his new plan seemed to gather with each word.  "There's also armour.  Wade owes me a favour."  
"He does make decent armour."

Alistair paused and I watched his fingers ride up to play with his lips.  His mind was somewhere else - that much was clear in his vacant look - but hey, that could have been that he was thinking about dinner.  One thing I would say about him though is that he was strong, and dedicated, and extremely loyal.  Would I ever tell him that though?  Pffft, no.  I didn't want to break his heart but this plan of his?  It was beyond ludicrous.

"Forget it, my friend.  We have office space.  We have students.   _We have tenure._ " I implored.  
"You think those students respect us?" Alistair replied incredulously.  "Not one passed their exams last month.  Not one.  Maybe I can't teach, but this?   _This_ I can do."

Oh Maker, here came the emotion.  I couldn't take it from him so I looked away.  Heartbreak always made me feel uncomfortable and here was the little Princeling of Parapsychology having his dreams ended.  I heard the rustle of a plastic packet and looked round.  Solas held out a Twinkie to comfort him.

"It's my last one."

Slowly the edges of Alistair's mouth curled up and he reached out to take the packet with a bashful grin.  

"Thanks." I heard before the precious snack was gobbled up.  The sugar kicked in and a slow, heady smile spread over his face.  "I know I'm being keen but we need to do this."  
"It is true that something has to be done, Varric." Solas agreed.  "The city guard cannot help.  We are the only ones who can, and we need to do it fast.  Every experiment, every reading, every Fadewalk I have done; it all points to them arriving soon.  And in vast numbers."

The two descended quickly into a scientific melting pot of ideas, theories, conjecture.  I shook my head and felt the beginnings of something I usually dreaded feeling - excitement.

"Solas?  Alistair?  You actually serious about this destroying darkspawn idea?"  
"I'm always serious, Varric." came the deadpan drawl of the elf.  
"We've earned this." Alistair beamed.  "Anyway, let's get back.  I've got to check the state of our swords if we're going to kick these things in the teeth ..."

And it so it went.  All the way back to the university, the two of them tried and tried again to convince me this was a good idea.  They wanted to use our downtime from the Institute to go catching these monsters who looked as though they had poured bleach on their own skin and it was now sloughing off.  That, and they were convinced that sanctuary lay inside someone's stomach.  The fizzling iota of excitement that we could make a going of this crazy-ass business adventure was building.  There would be money to be made inside this.  The city guard would outsource to us at a decent rate that I would negotiate.  I could think of several people in the watch that I played Wicked Grace with regularly.  They made the decisions and could get us a favourable rate.  Yes, I think could just work.

Walking through the student infested corridors, the bubbling and frothing hadn't stopped so when Alistair pushed open the doors to our laboratory and almost ran into the Dean of Faculty, he still wore an idiotic grin.

"Hey, Dean Cavin!"

Immediately I caught onto what was going on.  His slick eyes and greasy smile watched over us as Dalish servants moved around us, carting our equipment out into the corridor.  The perfect clothes, the perfect hair, the oily expression; I had always hated this man.  He only ever came to our rooms to remind us that we were there by the grace of Andraste.  But this time he wore a smile that shouted victory as he gazed on all three of us.  The only sounds I could hear from my friends were the opening and shutting of Alistair's mouth as he tried to understand what was happening.  Sighing internally, I bit and opened my mouth, hoping for the best.

"I trust you're moving us to better quarters on campus?"  
"No, you're being moved off campus.  The Council of Heralds, along with the Viscount, has decided to terminate your contract.  You're to vacate these premises immediately."  
"This is preposterous.  I demand an explanation."  
"Fine.  This University will no longer fund any research of any kind for this group's activities."

My head went slightly cold as I remembered my last meeting with the Council.  They didn't trust me and I didn't trust them.  Rows of stone cold men and women upon whom my charm would not work.  I could bullshit with the best of them but it had been worse than my viva.  In the Council meeting, I couldn't win them over.

I tried one last, admittedly half-hearted attempt to make him laugh and get him onside.  "But the kids love us."   
" _Doctor_ Tethras, we believe the purpose of science is to better mankind.  You believe it to be some kind of dodge or hustle.  An endless game, I'll bet."  
"Hey, who doesn't love Wicked Grace?" I smiled and shrugged.  A wincing noise shot from Alistair's mouth somewhere behind me.  
"You have no place in this department, or this University.  Goodbye." 

Wearing a victorious beam, he swept past us and out into the corridor.  Alistair gave small pleading cries as his sword was wrestled from his hands and taken from the room.  As the small lab in which we had spent the past four years slowly emptied, the three of us stood against the wall and watched.  Bianca was hidden behind my back and I growled at any elf who came to try and take it.  This piece of beauty was mine, and nobody would wrench it from me.

"So," Alistair asked, when all useful equipment had been leeched away, "what do we do now?"


End file.
